The case of George Shirakawa Jr. was wrapped up neatly Friday afternoon: a news conference by District Attorney Jeff Rosen, a resignation and expected plea by Shirakawa, the promise that prosecutors would seek a jail term. Justice while you wait.

It was a somber event that spoke volumes about politics in Santa Clara County, both for a disgraced East Side politician and for a DA who last year decided not to file against a politician in another scandal.

Put another way, Shirakawa forsook his job. Rosen performed his. Shirakawa broke the rules. With the help of a ranking prosecutor, Rosen enforced them. One man tarnished his family legacy. Another burnished his office.

As his house of cards collapsed, Shirakawa claimed that he was treated differently because he was Latino or heavy or a Raiders fan. He claimed the media were skewed, that the rules were applied capriciously, that folks on the East Side suffered from bias.

In media and law enforcement circles, the debate focused on whether the supervisor was stupid or corrupt. We know the answer now. He was both. Only a reckless man could sully the name of his beloved father, George Shirakawa Sr., so thoroughly.

Arrogance

A big part of that stupidity lay in the supervisor's arrogance. The DA's affidavit was salted with Shirakawa-isms: It was nobody's business whether he ate a steak or salad. Treasurers could help, but he liked doing his own books.

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Shirakawa attempted to explain his plight Friday by saying he suffered from a gambling addiction and depression. The truth is that he gambled in more than the obvious way.

While he spent campaign money at the casinos -- a reported $36,000 in one six-month period in 2009 -- Shirakawa's biggest gamble was in lying about the source and use of the funds. He didn't even bother to file reports.

For a long time, he got away with it. Before a story in Metro in the fall, the county's finance department and registrar's office showed all the collective zeal of three-toed sloths.

That the supervisor was charged lay with this simple truth: The numbers don't lie. Once investigators got Shirakawa's banking records, it was all over. It was the resolution that demanded political skill and discipline.

The end game

The end game featured more than its share of irony: Rosen's office deposed a supervisor who had served as head of the board's justice committee, overseeing the DA's budget.

The DA assigned the case to assistant DA Karyn Sinunu-Towery, who had run unsuccessfully for district attorney in 2006, four years before Rosen unseated Dolores Carr. Sinunu-Towery and her investigator, Michael Brown, returned with a comprehensive affidavit.

In his first two years of office, the 45-year-old Rosen has had to explain why he did not bring charges -- no death penalty for a child-murderer, no charges against Councilman Xavier Campos in the MACSA embezzlement, no charges in the DeAnza rape case.

The politically sure-footed DA has insisted on fairness toward defendants. He is as ethical an official as I know.

Ultimately, however, people elect a DA to prosecute crimes. And the charging and departure of Shirakawa sends the message that there is a cop on the beat. Nothing does more to ensure politicians obey the rules.